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Backup and voicecorder in one

mahkagari

Regular Member
Joined
Apr 28, 2009
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My wife found this.

http://www.forsse.com/index.html

It's a subscription service app for smartphones. Both CCers and OCers always get flak with "why don't you just call 911?" Our response is always how long it takes the police to arrive, but how about how long it takes to DIAL? More than once I've had to call 911 and wasted more time establishing just where I was than to indicate what the emergency was. The app is a little like OnStar. You can arm it at will if you feel threatened and it switches on your GPS and a voicecorder. An operator will listen to what's happening and dispatch emergency services if necessary.

So, basically whenever you hit condition orange you can arm it. If you have to verbally tell someone to backoff, backup already has your coordinates and an audio recording that you're on defense. If something escalates, law enforcement has the info of what happened even before they're even dispatched.
 

ZackL

Regular Member
Joined
Jul 17, 2009
Messages
340
Location
Calhan, Co.
That's a great app, if it works the way that it's supposed to. I wonder how long it would take to turn it on and whether you would be distracted from the threat while you do so.
 

mahkagari

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That's a great app, if it works the way that it's supposed to. I wonder how long it would take to turn it on and whether you would be distracted from the threat while you do so.

Faster than dialing 911 "in case" something happens. My voicecorder is on the front page of my apps, so it's almost as fast as flicking the safety off my 9mm. That's why, for me, I wouldn't wait until condition red.
 

Anubis

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Sep 16, 2006
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Arapahoe County CO, ,
An operator will listen to what's happening and dispatch emergency services if necessary.

The app sounds like a good idea, but now instead of you deciding whether to dial 911, you are depending on someone else to determine whether you are in a dangerous situation and then that person deciding whether to dial 911 for you. You are in the same basic situation as before: the dire situation is resolved before police can arrive.
 
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mahkagari

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The app sounds like a good idea, but now instead of you deciding whether to dial 911, you are depending on someone else to determine whether you are in a dangerous situation and then that person deciding whether to dial 911 for you. You are in the same basic situation as before: the dire situation is resolved before police can arrive.

You don't need to wait for them to decide. Well, you can, but that'd be dumb. You can arm it well beforehand and then tell the operator to call 911 as needed. The police still ain't getin' there in time. There's no two ways about that. But if you have to defend yourself, you have the voicecorder already backing you up as well as the service "witnessing".

My image is of getting into the habit of arming it every time you walk back to your car and find yourself in a deserted parking garage. Or a fender bender. Or road rage. Or hell, every time a pigeon looks at you cross-eyed. You're paying the service for them to listen to you be paranoid until you say, "The squirrel's attacking me *bam, bam* I shot him, he's down, send police! Oh, and an ambulance if you feel like it."

It's also for those situations where you don't know if you're coming up on a situation that needs medical assistance. It's a waste of 911's time to call and say, "There's a guy laying on the sidewalk with his bike next to him, oh, no, he's just resting, oh, wait. Now there's a man carrying a woman off to his car, oh, no, they're honeymooners and laughing, WAIT now there's a guy crammed in a box! Oh, it's just Boulder performance art." Basically, for the times when you're not sure if you need 911 "yet", you have a service to back you up for when it IS time.
 
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mahkagari

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You make valid points. Maybe you could give us a report in a couple of months, see whether you still like it, how it's working out, etc.

Eh. I'm not disciplined enough to even use a voicecorder and I don't find myself in that situation often enough to warrant the cost. My wife's considering it. I thought others might be interested, though.
 

OldCurlyWolf

Regular Member
Joined
Sep 8, 2010
Messages
907
Location
Oklahoma
Eh. I'm not disciplined enough to even use a voicecorder and I don't find myself in that situation often enough to warrant the cost. My wife's considering it. I thought others might be interested, though.

Finding yourself in "that situation" even once is enough to justify the recorded.:cool:
 

Ian

Lone Star Veteran
Joined
Nov 11, 2007
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710
Location
Austin, TX
If I feel threatened, my phone is not what I'm going to be reaching for.
 
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since9

Campaign Veteran
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Jan 14, 2010
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6,964
Location
Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA
If I feel threatened, my phone is not what I'm going to be reaching for.

I hear you, Ian, but it would be nice if there were a sub-$100 shirt-pocket voice/video recorder that operated 2/47, for 30 hours on a charge, simply looping over previously recorded data, so that in case any of us found ourselves in a world of hurt, we'd have a complete record of it. Charge length? I dunno. Full HD voice/video, about 10 minutes. Anything prior, reduced voice/video for at least 30 minutes. Beyond that, just voice snippets and one pic per second.

And in it's charge base, on the nightstand next to our beds, it's still going, helping protect our rights against any possible home intruders.

Seriously! With today's technology, is that too much to ask?
 
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